Richard Stevenson - Red White and Black and Blue

How much of this garish scenario was true? I supposed some of it was. Would I ever know for sure how it really happened? Possibly. Did it matter if I knew the truth? With the way things were about to go, not much.

I said, "I suppose you've heard about Louderbush."

"That you pushed him out a second-story window last night? I gave you more credit than that. I pegged you for a true professional who'd send him over Niagara Falls with a bag of bricks. Metaphorically speaking, of course."

"That's in the works. Louderbush is effectively out of the race."

"There'll be a withdrawal announcement later today, I'm told. Off to Betty Ford to deal with his alcoholism, sorry to disappoint his admirers, full support of his loving family-the whole bag of shtick. Not that you don't have other plans for him, which I'm sure you do."

"You bet."

"Bye-bye, Kenyon."

"And that leaves McCloskey and Ostwind to duke it out."

"That seems to be the case. Except, of course, you've got all manner of goddamned crap on us, and we've got all manner of goddamned crap on you. I'm assuming you're here to offer terms for a ceasefire. Am I right? We won't deploy our crap if you don't deploy yours."

"That's one of the possibilities, but it's not my plan A."

" Your plan A?" The epiglottis did a merry dance. "Shy McCloskey has entrusted his political future to some shit-ass Albany PI with pizza stains on his jeans and one ear hanging off? I'm as amused as I am amazed."

"Why would you be? Merle Ostwind has apparently entrusted her political future and the immediate future of the Republican Party in New York State to a partisan hack from the Nixon era whose only goal is to protect the assets of a class of billionaires with the morals of a pack of hyenas. Or are you not actually here to speak for the Ostwind campaign?"

"Partisan hack? I take myself far more seriously than that.

And you should, too, Mister PI Strachey."

"I'm aware of what the stakes are in all this."

"Oh, I don't think you do realize. Not at all. To you, it's just about issues or gay marriage or some other sideshow bunch of baloney. To me, it's about the power and the glory and the survival of the United States of America."

"Glorious banks. Glorious stockbrokers. Glorious hedge fund managers. Why do I have this nagging feeling that that's not what Jefferson and Madison had in mind?"

A dry chuckle. "Well, I can't argue with a sentimentalist.

So, what is your Plan A, may I ask? Where do we go from here?"

"Mr. Krupa, here's the deal," I said. "What I'd like to propose-but I'm not going to-is this: both sides dump all the garbage they've got on the other side in reporters' laps the newspapers would be ecstatic-and let the public make up its mind which political operation is the more revolting. Is it Shy and his seedy characters like myself and Bud Giannopoulis hacking people's phone calls and e-mails and impersonating federal agents? Or is it Todd and your Serbians and no doubt countless others doing the same type of 258

Red White and Black and Blue by Richard Stevenson electronic snooping, plus beating people up and blowing up cars in Albany residential neighborhoods?"

"Don't forget burning down night clubs in Hummerston."

"I still don't know what you mean by that. Anyway, I'd rather it all didn't play out that way. If this stuff got into the papers, the US attorney for the New York district might feel obliged to start empaneling grand juries. I think I could survive that, but I'm afraid Bud Giannopolous wouldn't. So, let's not do any of that. Enterprising reporters might dig up some of this anyway, but we don't have to make it easy for them."

"No, that particular scenario is out of the question from my perspective, also. Sweet Jesus."

"On the other hand, there is this: Our side is vulnerable, but yours is at far, far greater risk. Some of us might go to jail, but if the e-mails and phone conversations between you and Weaver and Goshen and the other bank and brokerage CEOs came to light-occupying pages and pages in the Times for days on end, a kind of Pentagon Papers of American capitalism-the consequences would be even more dire. It would create mayhem with markets, stock prices, bottom lines, bonuses. Jail would be a piece of cake in comparison to the damage the exposure of the Giannopolous papers would wreak on Wall Street. Do you know what I'm saying? Am I right?"

Krupa stared straight ahead for a long moment. Then he turned and peered at me. "You're in the wrong line of work."

"You mean because I was an English major at Rutgers?"

"On Wall Street, you could have gone far. You still could."

"No, I wouldn't last. Any more than I would working for Kim Jong Il. I'm too much of a pain in the ass."

"I'd say you're just exactly enough of a pain in the ass.

Shit."

"So, what I'm proposing is this: Shy McCloskey stays in the race and Mrs. Ostwind drops out. She develops a case of the vapors or a hernia or something. The Republicans can then come up with another, presumably weaker candidate, and at least come out of all this with the markets secure and no major figures under indictment. Sure, McCloskey will win, and for four years he'll raise regulatory hell with Wall Street.

But that'll pale next to what would have happened if the Giannopolous papers had ever gotten published and exposed the vast, appalling moral and social rot that you're promoting and that you represent."

Krupa gave me the fiercest stare I'd ever seen. Eventually he said, "You're insane."

I shrugged. "I don't think so."

"Holy shit, Strachey, I heard you were good, but this is incredible! You not only got rid of that disgusting degenerate Louderbush, but now Merle Ostwind will soon be gone, too.

The New York electorate won't have to do much more than declare Shy governor by acclamation. I mean, yes, it was touch and go there for a while. But, man oh man, did you ever pull it out in the end! I can't begin to thank you enough.

Have you ever thought of switching careers and going into politics? God, I'd be glad to help set you up."

"No, not politics. But recently I did briefly consider working on Wall Street. I'd join up just long enough to salt away a billion or two. Then retire to Thailand and live on spicy green papaya salad and invite the pool boys to hop up on my lap."

"Ha ha. Yeah, I can see you on Wall Street."

"With the pizza stains on my pants and my ear hanging off?"

"It'd be fun to watch from a distance, I'll say that."

Dunphy and I were in the private dining room at Da Vinci waiting for Shy McCloskey to show up. Dunphy had filled in McCloskey by phone, and the campaign director told me the senator was just thrilled, thrilled, thrilled with the way it was all turning out.

"I'm just glad," I said, "that I'm back in Senator McCloskey's good graces. For a while, his opinion of me was in the cellar, and that hurt. Did McCloskey mention to you, by the way, that it was he who was feeding somebody in Krupa's operation information about my psychic makeup so that my behavior could be manipulated? Spurred on or warned off, depending on the day of the week?"

The door opened and a waiter came in with an antipasti platter. Dunphy clammed up and waited.

After the waiter closed the door behind him, Dunphy said,

"I don't believe that. Krupa told you that?"

"I know," I said, "that the guy is a major liar."

"And let us not neglect to add, major troublemaker."

"I just wondered if you'd heard anything about that."

"No."

"Okay."

"Look, Shy doesn't tell me everything. Like you, I just work here. But it doesn't sound like the Shy McCloskey I know."

"I'd hate to think that the next governor of New York was that cynical. I've also wondered at times, Tom, if you yourself weren't recording our conversations. There were times when you talked to me in language that seemed to be aimed over my head somewhere, perhaps at a grand jury. Was I just imaging that?"